Somewhere along the way, the church stopped asking how God wants to be worshiped and started asking what people will show up for. We have spent decades perfecting an experience God never commanded.

Not because our doctrinal statements changed. They often haven’t. Not because we quit using the word “worship.” We use it constantly. The problem is that we have artfully redefined it. We have traded reverence for relevance, awe for atmosphere, and the fear of God for the pursuit of an experience.

We have taken the holy assembly of God’s people and run it through the machinery of the entertainment industry until it comes out looking suspiciously like every other product competing for people’s attention.

I recently saw someone sincerely ask what is actually wrong with scenes like this. Bright lights. Smoke. A frontman pacing a stage with a microphone. Thousands of people with hands in the air. Music pounding through the room.

What’s the biblical objection?

The answer reaches far deeper than stage lights or loud music.

The problem is worship itself.

The question is never whether people are emotionally engaged. Pagans are emotionally engaged. Taylor Swift concerts produce tears. Football stadiums erupt into ecstasy. Political rallies generate devotion. Human beings are worshipers by nature. The issue has never been whether our hearts are stirred. The issue is what God has commanded when His people gather before Him.

That question has almost disappeared from the church. Instead, churches ask a different one.

“What works?”

That single question has done more damage to the visible church than almost any theological error of the past century.

If flashing lights attract people, use them. If a concert atmosphere keeps young adults engaged, build one. If emotional manipulation creates powerful moments, turn it up.

If people leave saying, “That was amazing,” then success has supposedly been achieved.

Somewhere along the way, the audience simply became the customer.

This is nothing more than consumerism wearing a worship team’s lanyard.

Consumerism has taken over so much of Evangelicalism, even on Sunday mornings. The church becomes a brand. The pastor becomes a personality. The worship leader becomes a performer. The congregation becomes customers shopping for whichever church gives them the strongest emotional payoff. Everyone insists Jesus is at the center, yet every decision is filtered through one relentless question—“Will people like it?”

That is pragmatism. Pure and simple.

But Scripture never teaches the church to organize worship around human preference. Quite the opposite.

When Nadab and Abihu offered “unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them” (Leviticus 10:1), the issue was not their sincerity. Fire came from the Lord and consumed them because they presumed they could approach Him on their own terms. God’s explanation is terrifying in its simplicity:

“Among those who are near me I will be sanctified.”

Sanctified. Set apart.

Not marketed. Not optimized. Not reimagined. Not rebranded. Not “under new management.”

Holy.

The regulative principle of worship grows out of that reality. God determines how He is worshiped because God alone is worthy of worship. He has never delegated that authority to marketing consultants, church-growth experts, or creative directors.

Yet look around. The visible church is obsessed with innovation. Every conference promises the next thing. Every ministry wants a bigger production. Every worship experience has to become more immersive than the last.

All while the ordinary means God has ordained—Scripture read, Scripture preached, prayer, singing, baptism, the Lord’s Supper—have somehow become insufficient for modern people.

Apparently God needs our upgrades now.

I simply do not believe that.

When Israel built the golden calf, they did not announce they were abandoning Yahweh. Aaron literally proclaimed, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD” (Exodus 32:5).

Think about that.

The calf was introduced as an aid to worship. A visual enhancement. Something exciting, engaging… people could rally around it. The people ate. They drank. They celebrated. They rose up to play.

It was energetic. It was emotional. It was unforgettable.

God called it idolatry.

Idolatry often arrives wearing church clothes.

That is why I have become increasingly convinced that much of what passes for “worship” today is actually self-worship dressed up with Christian lyrics.

People chase a feeling. They crave the emotional crescendo. They measure God’s presence by the intensity of the music. They leave saying, “I really encountered God today,” when what they often encountered was expertly engineered emotional stimulation.

The human nervous system is remarkably predictable. Build enough anticipation. Dim the lights. Sustain the chords. Repeat the chorus. Increase the volume. Drop everything except a piano. Pause. Whisper. Then explode into the final refrain.

None of that requires the Holy Spirit.

Las Vegas understands emotional engineering. So does Disney. So does every major concert promoter on earth.

The church once understood something different.

The early Christians gathered under the shadow of persecution to devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers. Their confidence rested in the foolishness of preaching because God had ordained it.

They sang because Scripture commands singing. They prayed because God hears prayer. They baptized because Christ commanded baptism. They observed the Lord’s Table because He instituted it.

Simple. Ordinary. Holy.

The modern church often finds that unbearably unimpressive. We seem embarrassed by God’s simplicity. We assume people need spectacle before they’ll listen to Scripture. So we package Christ the way corporations package products.

We market Him. We accessorize Him. We stage Him. Then we wonder why biblical literacy collapses, discernment evaporates, and churches become revolving doors of restless consumers always chasing the next emotional high.

Consumer Christianity creates consumer Christians. It could hardly produce anything else.

None of this means music itself is evil. None of it means excellence is wrong. None of it means Christians must gather in dimly lit buildings with off-key singing and broken microphones. That misses the point entirely.

The issue is authority. Who decides what worship is? God? Or us?

That question divides two radically different visions of the church. One believes worship exists primarily to satisfy God’s revealed will. The other believes worship succeeds when people leave satisfied.

Those are not the same destination. One produces reverence. The other produces customers.

And after years of watching evangelicalism race toward bigger productions, flashier stages, celebrity worship leaders, and endless reinvention, I have become convinced that the church does not need another concert.

She needs to recover the terrifying privilege of standing before a holy God on His terms instead of our own.

Because the living God has never asked us to impress Him.

He has commanded us to obey Him.